Madam, - It is perhaps a sign of the topsy-turvy nature of the times that when the Catholic Church protests officially against a so-called advertisement which parodies the Last Supper, the editor of a Catholic weekly should take issue not with the offending billboard but with the manner of the Church's clear condemnation of the abuse (October 8th). It beggars belief.
What credible alternative was there to Bishop Joseph Duffy's forthright public denunciation of this travesty of the famous painting? Other ways of expressing disapproval may well be cited, but how widely understood - or more likely misunderstood - would total silence by the Church have been? What would it convey other than that the Church authorities had no problem with this particularly offensive depiction of the central event in the life and mission of Jesus Christ?
Not alone would the silence of the Church have seemed inexplicable to many Catholics seeing the billboard, thus further undermining adherence to the faith of some of the weaker members; it would indeed have registered as an instance of moral cowardice. Would the leaders of any other faith - Islam, for instance - have failed to respond were an aspect of their religion similarly ridiculed? The answer, as far as Muslims (and indeed Hindus) are concerned, as examples in the UK show, is obvious.
Bishop Joseph Duffy, as chairman of the communications commission of the Irish Episcopal Conference, is to be commended for his comprehensive explanation as to why this tasteless campaign offends Catholics and equally other Christians. Not to have responded would surely have constituted dereliction of duty on his part.
To have adopted the sort of passive attitude which the editor of the Irish Catholic would seem to favour might well, as the Bard puts it, locate us in "a strange-disposed time" in which "men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves". - Yours, etc,
DES CRYAN, Blackrock, Co Dublin.